Sankofa Series: Know the first woman to become a professor in Ghana

In today's edition of GhanaWeb's Sankofa Series, as part of efforts to mark Ghana Month, we take a look at one of Ghana's educationists who has made a name as the first-ever female professor.

From a rather low-income background, she fought her way up the ladder to attain the prestigious position of professorship.

Florence Dolphyne is known today as the first female to be appointed as a professor and pro-vice chancellor in Ghana.

Born in 1938 at Akynakrom in the Ejisu-Juabeng District of the Ashanti Region, Florence went through the Wenchi Methodist Primary School to the Achinakrom Methodist Primary School but had to sell kenkey and bread at that point to be able to move ahead with her education, at Mmofraturo Girl’s Boarding School.

After her basic education, she proceeded to the Wesley Girls Senior High School in Cape Coast for her secondary education and did her 6th form section at Mfantsipim School (which was only mixed at 6th form) and she emerged as the first female student to win a prize.

She furthered her studies at the University of Ghana in 1958 and graduated with a BA (Hons) degree in English in 1961.

After this, she moved to the School of Oriental & African Studies at the University of London, where she earned her PhD.

Florence began her career as a teacher at Labone Senior High School and then joined the academic staff of the University of Ghana in September 1965.

She is known as one of the founding members of the Department of Linguistics and Ghanaian Languages at the University of Ghana.

From there, she rose to become the Head of the Linguistics Department and also the Senior Tutor and Warden of the Volta Hall.

She was appointed Professor of Linguistics in 1996.

She also served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the university. She was awarded an honorary doctorate (D. litt.) by the University of Ghana in 2004.

This article was originally published by GhanaWeb March, 2023